Introduction
It was a cold and dark November night when everything started with an announcement on a local website that the Corfu Hiking and Climbing Club is organising a hiking excursion on the NW Corfu from Troumpeta to Doukades and that new members are welcome. Without further hesitation I decided to visit their office to register and take part on the excursion. Several members of the club were already there and they have been welcoming new members as well providing advice and guidance about the excursion such as clothing or equipment but also warnings about the difficulties and competencies of the hiking experience. Yet, I have been already enjoying hiking since I was in the "flat" England registering my hikes on the Strava app, so I didn't pay a lot of attention on their advice and warnings believing that it would be an easy task for me although i was lately a bit overweight and untrained for a mountainous hiking trip.
The Corfu Hiking and Climbing Club
Corfu Hiking and Climbing Club is a well established hiking club in the island of corfu organising hikes and climbs not only in the Corfu countryside but also in the more mountainous Greek mainland especially in the closer regions of Epirus, Macedonia and SW Greece.
AS it was translated from its website, its purpose is
...the systematic cultivation and dissemination of all forms of hiking, as well as the protection and promotion of the Greek mountainous area and environment. Some of its individual goals are also the strengthening of every event related to cultural, spiritual and social development and the dissemination and preservation of the folklore tradition of the place. Also, the objectives include its active involvement in matters of protection of the mountainous nature and the environment in general, either autonomously or in collaboration with other relevant Greek and International organizations and associations private or public. It also takes care of the cleaning and maintenance of the paths within the regional unit of Corfu.
Founded in 2017 by a mere 28 founding members, it now consists of more than 250 members participating in weekend hikes in Corfu but also in the Greek mainland according to its annual schedule.
The Trip
As it was scheduled, the trip started the following Sunday early in the morning with the gathering of the participants in the Corfu Old Port area named Spilia. Soon the coach was completely filled with 50+ hiking members as we gathered few members towards our hiking destination on the North West Corfu and precisely at the village of Troumpeta which is also a meeting point between the North and the Central part of the island. That was the starting point of the hiking still early in the morning on the Corfu mountainous countryside and the leader informed us that the trip would last roughly 4 hours. We had just started hiking and i was a bit worried of the unknown when I was already surprised that instead of hiking on the tarmac road we turned straight inside the slope of the hill following an uphill path completely covered with tall dense bushes!
That made me to feel anxious but my plan was to keep the same pace with the more experienced and trained members, keeping in mind to stay in the lead team so that if I will start getting tired to have few people behind me when they would start overtaking me. After all the path was so narrow that I always had somebody else right at my back and there was no time for hesitations. Everybody look so cool and calm enjoying their hike but personally, that was already nothing compared to my easy relaxed hikes in the flat Cambridge countryside that I used to do during the previous years.
Alas! In the end of the uphill, the view of the whole green Corfu island was magnificent and very well worth of our efforts. The sun was shining that November Sunday and the sky was so clear that I could notice a very big part of the island up to Corfu town.
We made a short break to take some great photographs of the scenery and we decided to continue our trip. The second part of the hiking appeared to me easier although we had to climb down a very downslope path while heading to Alimatades and I had to keep my attention where i put my feet fearing that there would be still humidity on the rocks that might make me slip because I didn't have any climbing batons that are very helpful to keep your body stable while hiking in downslopes.
However the hike after the Alimatades downslope was much easier and we passed through some very nice olive trees woods. A scenery completely different from the one I was used to in England. Very Mediterranean !!!
In the 3rd part of the trip after the olive trees woods, we had to climb again a very steep uphill path of the Lakones rocks above the Palaiokastritsa Bay that made everyone tired.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take pictures during the climb as the path was very steep and I had people climbing at my back so I had to be careful to keep the same pace with the rest of the hiking team. At least i managed to found one online. Again the scenery on the top towards the West side of Corfu and the village of Liapades was magnificent and we also took some pictures of the whole team to remember the day.
And of course whoever goes up, has to go down again and we had another steep downslope where again the essence of hiking batons proved to be vital. Eventually the downslope led us to the village of Lakones where we had to wait for the whole team to gather again and this is where i took the following picture of a blue abandoned pick up truck that I found really picturesque.
Lakones was actually the last village before Doukades which was the end of our destination so I falsely believed that our hiking trip would have been soon over. However I proved wrong !!! Although we continued our downslope and while passing again through magnificent olive trees woods, the leading team decided that we need to leave the main road and follow the predefined bumpy rocky legacy paths that were standing just off the road !!! Even when we left the old legacy paths, we took another steep uphill that made me to start getting tired mostly because I was more untrained than the rest of the hiking team. Although I have been always trying to be close to the hiking lead, I soon started losing ground walking heavily and slow but without stopping and I started feeling that everyone was overtaking me. This is when the hiking leader noticing my difficulty came close to me to see how i was doing and adviced me to try to do one and a bit bigger step than the leading team in an attempt to catch them out. But it proved to be very difficult. Yet I continued. I felt that I was so close but still so far away from the finish village. Finally the uphil was finished followed by another downhill that apprently should had led to Doukades when I saw a hiking checkpoint advising me to follow the downhill path instead of continuing on the main road. Then I stopped. I felt completely alone and I had no idea where to go. Should I continue taking the main road or turn where the hiking road was asking me on the old legacy downhill path? Soon another teamm-mate reached me and we decided that it is better to take the hiking path because that was the official path of the team and by taking the road possible could have delayed us. It proved the correct choice because soon we entered the vilalge of Doukades and in the first houses on the old legacy path we met the hiking leader who advised us to turn right and continue. This is where we got confused because we believed that we reached the end of the trip but we couldn't find the coach. We took the road left when we met some other team-members who advised us that we should have gone the other way. Soon we reached another cross-road and hoping that the coach would have been at the village's square we headed left again when we realised that the coach has been waiting for us on the other side and that we had to go back again and continue to the right side pof the cross-road. Nevertheless, we continue walking down the main road towards Gardelades not Doukades and it proved that everybody else have been waiting for us there including the coach. I guess there was a bit of miscommunication there with the coach driver, I felt completely exchausted in the end but i definately enjoyed the whole experience.
Analytics
Since I have been recoding the the whole trip in Strava app, I managed to obtain few analytics of the trips. As it is shown below, overall I covered a distance of 8.8 miles within 4:30:58 hours. Mind that this a clean hiking distance without the breaks and stops that we had to take during the hike. Overall elevation gain was the astonishing 1,799 feet and I managed to execute 24,136 steps which is a way a huge number comparing to my lazy winter CryptoSundays
Max elevation was 1,428 ft which i guess it was during the steep uphill climb of the Lakones Rocks above Palaiokastritsa Bay. On the red arrow you can examine the uphill where I started feeling heavy and slow and I overall managed to keep an average pace of 30:46 minutes per mile which interestingly is much better than my pace during my usual afternoon 1 hour walks where i reach a pace of 18.21 per mile.
Final Thoughts
Overall it was a great experience. Yes it was a bit difficult for me although the hiking trip had a 1+ difficulty grade but it was a completely new experience in comparison to my usual lazy winter cryptoSundays. With better equipment i.e. hiking boots and batons I could have been more confident to perform better, however that was my first ever serious and team hike. So far either in flat England or in Greece, I was hiking solo short distances close to my house. But that was my first ever social hiking experience. I would have preferred more main roads hikes rather than the bumpy old paths that we kept taking but the view and scenery in the end of them were really astonishing. Unfortunately, that was the last sunny Sunday of November since winter is very rainy in Corfu so I decided to stop any hikes during this period. Nevertheless, the rest of the hiking Sundays trips organised from the Corfu Hiking and Climbing Club had a hiking difficulty of 2 and even 2+ that means that they were much more difficult than the one I participated so in combination with the rainy weather I decided not to participate on them. One of them even took place in the nearby island of Lefkada with a difficulty grade of 2+.
Certainly, I hope that during Spring 2024 I will share more Hiking Sundays with the Corfu Hiking and Climbing club.
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